Oceanside has shot at redemption

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Coming off one its best games and arguably its best half of the season, Oceanside’s girls’ lacrosse team couldn’t keep up with red-hot Farmingdale last Saturday evening on Senior Night.

The Lady Dalers claimed the Nassau Conference II title with a 17-3 victory and also secured the No. 4 seed in the Class A playoffs in the process. Kelly Bergersen had four goals and one assist, while Oliva Mott added a hat trick for Farmingdale, which improved to 10-2 overall and 9-0 in conference play. Oceanside (7-7, 5-3) got two goals from senior Jamie Mecca and one from senior Lucia Alamia.

“We never got in sync all night but we’ve got the rare chance to redeem ourselves in 10 days,” Lady Sailors coach Ralph Montera Jr. said. “The first 15 minutes we played OK, but then it got away from us. The only thing we were disappointed with was not making a run in the second half.

“Farmingdale hasn’t lost a conference game all year,” he added. “They’ve got three do-it-all midfielders and do a nice job pressuring the ball.”

Already on a collision course to meet in the opening round of the playoffs due to Nassau’s conference alignment, Oceanside will visit Farmingdale in an elimination game on May 15. “We need to defend a little differently and there’s a couple of wrinkles we can throw at them,” Montera Jr. said. “We didn’t show them everything. We also need to be closer to 50 percent on draws after losing 15 out of 20. We have to get more possessions.”

It marked the second straight game the Lady Sailors trailed by five goals at halftime. On April 30, however, they pulled off a tremendous come-from-behind 13-12 overtime victory against visiting Kellenberg. Alamia’s fourth assist of the day set up Mecca’s winner 1:30 into OT. A groundball and clear by senior Gianna Sciremammano put the offense in business. Junior goaltender Caroline Kreamer made 13 saves, including a game-saver early in overtime.

“Kellenberg has wins over two Conference I teams and they came out flying all over the field,” Montera Jr. said. “We made some adjustments at halftime and it was encouraging that we were scoring. It wasn’t like we were down 5-0. It was 11-6 and we were doing some positive things.”

Kellenberg managed just one goal over the final 27 minutes. Oceanside got within 12-11 with 4:05 remaining on sophomore Shannon DiDominca’s goal, and junior Annelisa Milano netted the equalizer with 36 seconds left. Milano had five goals and one assist. Mecca had three goals and Alamia scored twice. “We did a nice job of hanging around and our depth was a factor,” Montera Jr. said. “We kept rolling out fresh middies.”

JV callups Megan Rugolo and Alex Dato have bolstered the depth at midfield, which is led by Mecca (28 goals) and freshman Lily Johnson following a season-ending injury to junior standout Julia Schwasnick. Rugolo scored in the Kellenberg game, which also saw senior Katie Morgan see her first action of the spring.